Photo: Getty Images
If you aren’t familiar with the thyroid – the butterfly-shaped endocrine gland in the middle of your neck, located in front of your windpipe (trachea) – let’s get up to speed.
The thyroid gland functions primarily to influence metabolism, which is defined by how our bodies convert fuel from the food we eat into the energy need to survive. It does so by producing hormones, including triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4), which also help regulate body temperature, heart rate and blood pressure.
...
PHOTO: Courtesy of patient, Danielle
Since the age of 8, Danielle Press has loved the sport of gymnastics. Training multiple days a week for years, the gym became her home away from home. Through hard work and dedication, Danielle ascended to the rank of level 10 gymnast.
As with any sport, injuries are an unwanted, albeit, inevitable reality.
“One day she was doing a drill on the bars and caught her elbow. It hyperextended and popped. We thought it was possibly dislocated,” Sarah Press, Danielle’s mom, explained.
Sarah rushed Danielle to...
PHOTO: Courtesy of patient, Natalie
It was the heat of Texas summer and Natalie Boyd was preparing to start her senior year of high school. Natalie, who was no stranger to medical challenges, noticed a bump on the ridge of her left shoulder.
“I didn’t think anything of it at first. I had scoliosis (an abnormal curvature of the spine) since fifth grade and that shoulder was always a bit larger as a result,” Natalie said.
Over the course of the next few months, though, as Natalie monitored it, the bump continued to grow. She and her family thought, perhaps, it was related to a previous spinal...
PHOTO: Courtesy of patient, Maddie
Meeting the woman who helped save Maddie’s life. If you haven’t read part 1 of Maddie’s journey, click here.
Diagnosed with a rare and high-risk form of cancer, hypodiploid acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the Stanton family knew they needed to pursue an aggressive treatment option for their 7-year-old Maddie.
While success rates for children with ALL have increased substantially over the years, at the time, the rare type of ALL...
Laryngomalacia is a congenital anomaly – meaning it is present at birth – of the larynx, or voice box, and is the most common cause of a particular kind of noisy breathing called stridor in infants. This occurs when the tissues of the voice box collapse inward when taking in a breath.
The noisy breathing associated with laryngomalacia is quite distinctive, and has a high-pitched, squeaky or fluttery quality. It may be noticeable constantly, or only some of the time, and is often worse with feeding, agitation, and when the baby lies on his or her back (rather than on their stomach).
While the exact cause of laryngomalacia is...